Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 20.djvu/28

16 PRUSSIA [POPULATION. Com- tion. In 1883 Prussia possessed upwards of three-fifths of the merchant ships of Germany, including 2586 sailing vessels and 229 steamers, manned by 17,315 men. Their burden, however, amounting to 449,391 tons, was little more than one-third of the whole, and was exceeded by that of Bremen and Hamburg taken together. None of the Prussian seaports vies with either Hamburg or Bremen ; the largest is Stettin, which possesses a fleet of 40 steamers and 280 sailing ships. In 1881 the Prussian harbours were entered by 38,054 vessels of 3,483,545 tons burden, and cleared by 38,005 of 3,518,098 tons burden. The best seamen are furnished by the fishing population of Friesland or Frisia. Communication. With most internal means of communication munica- Prussia is well provided. Almost none of its excellent highroads existed in the time of Frederick the Great, and many of them date from the Napoleonic era. The first Prussian railway was laid in 1838, but the railway system did not receive its full development until the events of 1866 removed the obstacles placed in the way by Hanover. Most of the lines were easy of construction, and absorbed comparatively little capital. The great majority were laid by private companies, and the Government confined itself to establishing lines in districts not likely to attract private capital. In 1879, however, a measure was passed authorizing the acquisi- tion by the state of the private railways, and in 1884 nine-tenths of the 13,800 miles of railway in Prussia were in the hands of Government. The proportion of railway mileage in Prussia (5 miles per 10,000 inhabitants) is nearly as high as in Great Britain, but the traffic is much less. Thus in 1880-81 the Prussian rail- ways carried only 124 million passengers, while the British lines conveyed 622 millions. The expenses swallowed up 56 per cent, of the gross receipts, or 4 per cent, more than those of England in the same year ; but in the matter of railway accidents the comparison is more favourable to the Prussian railways, on which only 235 persons lost their lives as compared with about four times as many in Great Britain. The passenger traffic has not increased in pro- portion to the extension of the railway system and the growth of population, but the goods traffic has steadily advanced. The canal system of Prussia is little beyond its infancy, the total length of all the canals in the kingdom being only 1200 miles, a very small number as compared with either England or France. Among the most important are those uniting the Pregel with the Memel, and the Vistula with the Oder (via the Netze), and those bringing the Spree and Havel into communication with the Elbe on the one side and the Oder on the other. Canals uniting the Ems and the Rhine, the Ems and the Weser, and the Weser and the Elbe are still desiderata. On the other hand, Prussia has a large supply of navigable rivers. Population. The last census of Pmssia was taken in 1880, and the accompanying table summarizes the principal results then ascer- tained. The total population amounts to about 60 per cent, of that of the German empire. Popula- tion Provinces. Popula- tion. _o a. c $.3 Protest- ante. Roman Catho- lics. Other Chris- tian Sects. Jews. Others. East Prussia West Prussia Brandenburg .... Pomerania 1,933,956 1,405,898 3,389,155 1,540,034 1,703,397 4,007,925 2,312,007 1,127,149 2,120,168 2,043,442 1,554,376 4,074,000 67,624 135 142 220 132 152 257 237 154 142 262 256 390 153 1,654,510 672,402 3,182,486 1,498,930 532,499 1,867,470 2,154,655 1,111,252 1,842,136 949,644 1,087,901 1,077,173 2,221 250,462 693,719 131,781 23,877 1,112,020 2,082,084 145,518 8,903 258,824 1,070,212 420,206 2,944,18(5 64,491 7,483 12,390 6,087 1,962 451 3,328 3,394 1,687 2,738 2,614 3,073 7,015 3 18,218 26,547 66,245 13,886 56,609 52,682 6,700 3,522 14,790 18,810 41,316 43,694 771 3,263 840 2,556 1,379 1,818 2,361 1,740 1,785 1,680 2,162 1,880 1,932 138 Silesia Saxony Schleswig-Hol- stein Hanover Westphalia Hesse-Nassau . . Rhineland Hohenzollern 27,279,111 202 17,633,279 9,206,283 52,225 363,790 23,534 The following table shows the growth of the population since the death of Frederick, the first king of Prussia. The first trustworthy census of Prussia was taken in 1816 ; the earlier figures are only more or less reasonable estimates. Date. Population. Area in square miles. Average per square mile. 1713 1,731,000 43,425 39 1740 2,486,000 45,900 54 1786 5,430,000 75,220 72 1797 8,700,000 118,000 73 1816 10,349,031 108,100 05 1831 13,038,070 108,100 120 1864 19,254,649 108,430 177 1880 27,279,111 134,490 202-8 Between 1816 and 1831 the increase of the population of Prussia was about 30 per cent., and between 1831 and 1864 it was 46 per cent. Some districts have more than doubled their population since 1816, but the annual increment since 1866 has not exceeded 1 per cent., a fact due to the less rapid multiplication in the new pro- vinces and the losses in the Franco-German War. The rate of increase in the latter part of the period 1867-84 has, however, been considerably more rapid than in the first half. The increase is entirely due to the surplus of births over deaths, as emigration is very much in excess of immigration. With the exception of Saxony and some of the smallest states, Prussia is increasing more rapidly in population than any other member of the German empire. Its rate of increase is fully twice that of France and about the same as that of the United Kingdom. The highest rate of increase in 1875-80 took place in Berlin (2 '92 per annum) ami Westphalia (1-39), the lowest in Hohenzollern (0'35) and East Prussia (0'82). The birth-rate, which for the entire country is 40 per 1000, is highest in West Prussia, Posen, and Westphalia and lowest in Schleswig-Holstein, Hanover, and Hesse-Nassau. The death-rate for the whole monarchy is about 27 per 1000, considerably higher than that of Great Britain, which is about 20 per 1 000. Pomerania is remarkable for its low death-rate, West Prussia and Silesia for a high one. Both the birth-rate and the death-rate show a tendency to diminish. Of the births in 1882 8*11 per cent, were illegitimate, the proportion varying from 2 '92 per cent, in Westphalia to 11 per cent, in Pomerania, and nearly 15 per cent, in Berlin. Between 1872 and 1880 the number of marriages diminished with almost unvarying steadiness ; since 1880 it has risen again and now amounts to about 8 per 1000 inhabitants. An interesting feature is the large proportion of mixed confessional marriages, amounting as a rule to about 7 per cent, of the whole. Between 1871 and 1881 the annual emigration from Prussia amounted to 1*8 per 1000 inhabitants ; in 1882 no fewer than 129,894, and in 1883 104,167 emigrants left the country by the German ports and Antwerp. The highest proportion of emigrants comes from Pomerania (5'6) and Posen (4 '3), the lowest from Silesia, the Rhineland, and Saxony. A study of the figures in the table given above will show that as a rule the density of population increases from north to south and from east to west. As might be expected, the thickest population is found in the mining and manufacturing district of the Rhine, which is closely followed by the coal-regions of Silesia and parts of Saxony and Westphalia. The proportion for the whole kingdom is about 200 per square mile, but in the district of Diisseldorf this figure rises to 750 and in the moorlands of Hanover it sinks to less than 50. According to the census of 1880, 57 '4 per cent, of the popula- tion is rural, and 42 '6 per cent, urban, i.e., lives in communities of more than 2000 inhabitants. The relative proportions vary greatly in the different provinces, as much as 62 per cent, of the population living in towns in the Rhineland, and as little as 23 or 24 per cent, in East Prussia and Posen. About 17 per cent, of the population is absorbed by towns each with 20,000 inhabitants and upwards, while in Great Britain half the population is massed in the large towns and from 65 to 70 per cent, is urban. In Prussia also there is observable a strong movement towards concentration in towns, the annual rate of increase in the urban population being six times as great as that in the rural communities. In 1880 Prussia contained 24 towns each with upwards of 50,000 inhabit- ants, and 7 with upwards of 100,000 inhabitants, the correspond- ing numbers in Great Britain being 59 and 26. The following arc the towns with upwards of 100,000 inhabitants each : Berlin 1,122,330 Brcslan 272,912 Hanover 145,227 Cologne 144,772 Konigsberg 140,909 Frankfort-on-the-Main . . 130,819 Dantsic 108,551 Elberfeld and Barmen practically form one town with a popula- tion of 189,479 ; and Magdeburg, Diisseldorf, Stettin, and Altona are all above 90,000. The annual rate of suicides in Prussia is 18 to 20 per 100,000 inhabitants, a proportion seldom exceeded among European states. Divided according to nationalities, the present (1885) population of Prussia consists roughly of 24,000,000 Germans, 2,800,000 Poles in the eastern provinces, 150,000 Lithu- anians in the north-east, 180,000 Danes in Schleswig-Holstein, 90,000 Wends in Brandenburg and Silesia, 60,000 Czechs in Silesia, and 12,000 Walloons near the Belgian frontier. In the rural dis- tricts of Posen and in parts of Silesia the PoLes form the predominant element of the population. In 1882 a census of occupations was taken in the German empire, the main results of which, so far as they relate to Prussia, are summarized in the following table. The figures include the wives, families, and other dependants of those actually engaged in the several occupations. The actual workers are about 11 millions in number and their dependants 16 millions. Occupations. Number of per- sons supported. Percentage of total population. 11,904,407 9,393,750 2,725,344 690,892 1,305,657 1,267,810 43 35 10 2-4 5 4-6 3 Trade 4. Domestic servants (and general labourers) 5. Official, military, and professional classes 6. Persons not returned under any occupation